Posted on 01/13/2008 9:19:38 AM PST by abb
Longtime Hollywood publicist Julian Myers will turn 90 soon. And he worries the end may be near ... for Hollywood.
Myers frets that the WGA stalemate -- with all of its acrimony, vitriol and job losses -- is a harbinger of ill things for the industry.
"The strike impasse is speeding the end of Hollywood filmmaking and television production," says Myers, who has been working in the biz since 1939 and is still an IATSE member. "There are more union contracts coming up for renewal, and already unionists are crossing union lines. IATSE is urging its members to go right on through. Insults are being exchanged, faces will be bashed and fatalities are a possibility."
Myers, of course, remembers when such confrontations were more common. He recalls participating in a 1946 strike in which 900 unionists were arrested in front of Warner Bros. Studios and bussed off to a Burbank jail.
Now, with tensions again running high, Myers worries that the town might be consumed.
"Does a dying Hollywood need a civil war today to hasten its erosion?" he asks.
Promoted here as in on FR? Most of the movies mentioned here aren’t being what I’d call ‘promoted’. :-) Anyway, Zodiac was about the infamous series of murders in the Bay area back in ‘69 or so. It’s one of the best crime films ever made.
I’ll have to check it out. Thanks! And no — I meant the ones promoted when I do actually get to see a movie. It seems like all the trailers I see are “icky” — to use a non-prefessional term. LOL
Profits are astronomical and the strike will end eventually with a more equitable distribution of payments than there is currently.
“3:10 to Yuma” is an excellent film, too. It takes the audience to another time and place, and returns them better for it.
lol. Either that and/or he's a flaming leftist who thought Stalin was a good role model.
Whatever it takes, old man. Whatever it takes.
You make a good point. Show biz is totally anachronistic and obsolete. It is crying out for some creative destruction.
The Spiderman movies have such aggressive use of CGI that they honestly seem like animated films for long stretches, but almost everyone I've spoken to marvels at how realistic they seem.
Perhaps my brain works differently.
Show biz is most appropriately understood as entertainment, not culture. A movie is no more significant than an athletic event or video game. At best they are lagging indicators of culture, not drivers. To believe otherwise is to buy into the entertainment world's inflated sense of self-importance and desperate need to be taken seriously, against a tsunami of argument to the contrary.
Is literature culture? Is music? Then so is film. Movies have decisively shaped the culture of the last century.
Did you see Zodiac? There CGI was used for what it’s best for...removing satellite dishes from rooftops to a enhance the sense of period, putting the Escadero Bridge in the background of a scene set when it was still standing.
I want to see a movie made of My Grandfather's Son.
That’s a great idea.
Copy that!
You are exactly right. Someone different might make and distribute video entertainment, but it will likely still happen. If you ignore, lecture and belittle your customers, you can generally expect to be replaced in the market by someone who is more attuned to the customers.
Yeah, because action movies were never at all 'fake' before CGI. < /Sarc >
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